It's often said here that enablers are cowards, but something fell into place today when I had this thought: my mother is spineless. I think this is the colloquial way of saying someone has no boundaries. All those times she put up a token fight and then wimped out...
So you've realised that you can't fix your parents, they're never going to apologise, they think you're the problem, they aren't capable of changing, and they still make you want to smash a pizza into your face. You've cut contact to preserve your sanity, and you're starting to accept that you'll probably never really get over it, which only leaves one more question:
Now what?
So we had a thread for "Movies that resonate", but what about music? Like, specific songs. I used to (and still do) listen to a lot of punk and metal to deal with my family, but I don't think many of the songs were specifically about this. It was more just the high energy.
Well, maybe there were a few specific songs:
How about you?
Recently, I woke up thinking about our parents' inability to apologise and tendency to say shit like "it wasn't that bad." It got me thinking.. Where is this scale of "not loving someone" exactly? I mean, do they really get a pass because their parents didn't love them more than they don't love us? Like, if your character reaches -100 hit points should you be grateful it wasn't -150, when you'd be dead either way?
Or if they caused a car accident, how bad would it have to be before they would start to think about apologising or making amends? Of course, we all already know the answer to this one, I'm just putting it into perspective.
I suspect the more damage they do, the less likely they'll own it.
This is the mess I'm trying to unravel. Do you spot any familiar patterns? Also, would you show something like this to a friend if they raised the issue of your estrangement?
P.S. Sorry if this is hard to read on your phone. It's bad enough on my laptop.
[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]
How do you satisfy the need to be heard? It feels like we've been placed in this double bind, where if we talk, we get blamed, and if we don't we go crazy. It's great to have spaces like this where we can talk freely with people who get it, but what about your social network in real life? I've been thinking about posting a neutral-as-possible blog online, but every time I wrestle with this beast, I get burned. On the other hand, staying silent is eating me up.
Some of the rules (explicit and implicit) that governed my family of origin.
Some of these could be considered duplicates, but I'm sure you can come up with more.
EDIT: thought of another one: "if you share your dreams, we will sabotage them".
i have reached the end. it doesn't matter what i do, it always comes back. i can't live like this.
I know this looks like a low-effort post, but it has taken me hours to write.
Some quotes from a YouTube musician's video about his decision to leave his country: